Biography / CV of Patrick Mateescu

Patrick entered the academy of Fine Arts in Bucarest in 1946 and, until 1950, he studied sculpture under Cornel Medrea.

He received a MFA in 1970. He made his first sculpture in high school in Ploiesti, encouraged by his adoptive father.

After the death of his first wife, he immigrated to California in 1979, and in 1985 moved, with his new wife, to New Jersey where he has a house with a sculpture garden and a studio.

When he started his career in Romania, he transformed ceramics into a major art, influencing a whole generation of artists.

His work is eclectic and unpredictable, going from small and large scale cast porcelain to unique stoneware figurative monuments in Romania and to the recent abstract-animist compositions.

He has received numerous honors and awards, he worked, as artist in residence, at different prestigious places, and at international ceramic symposiums.

His work is in important collections and museums.

Patrick Mateescu

Awards and Prizes of Patrick Mateescu

2000 - The order of M. Eminescu from the Romanian Government for outstanding contribution to the Romania culture1999 - Fellowship from the New Jersey State Council of the Arts1978 - Gold Medal, The 36th International Ceramic Show, Faenza, Italy1972 - Diplome d`Honneur, The Third Biennial of Ceramics, Vallauris, France1967 - The Henry Reynaud price at the International Exhibition of Ceramics, Istanbul, Turkey1966 - Gold Medal, Form und Qualitat, Munchen, Germany1965 - Prize of the Union of Fine Arts of Romania, Bucharest, Romania1962 - Gold Medal, International Ceramic Exhibition, Prague, Czechoslovakia.

"All my life as an artist I have asked myself: What pushes me continually to make sculpture? I have found the answer. art is an action against death. It is a denial of death. "Jacques Lipchitz1891-1973